BLOG

UC-Cal State Bakersfield 2nd half impressions

Twelve
Bearcats - count them, 12 - scored for UC tonight. Dion Dixon led the way with
13 points, and Ibrahima Thomas had a nice night with 11 points. Really, no
other stats stand out, except for the sheer mass of Bearcats who scored.

Oh, and that Deonta Vaughn and Yancy Gates each spent 30 minutes on the bench.
Lance Stephenson only played 17. That's a nice change of pace for that trio.

Oh, and Anthony McClain had eight points and eight rebounds. So that was fun.

UC 87,
CalStateBakersfield 58
(final)

So, what do you get out of this if you're UC? Playing time for players who
wouldn't normally get it.

"The one
good thing about playing this game right now was to treat it as a day where we
could practice and then play," Mick Cronin said in his postgame presser.

"We can show them film of themselves minutes. It gave some guys a chance
to perform and give them playing time. Especially guys like Biggie McClain and
Jaquan Parker who practiced hard in practice. Biggie would have had a double
double but his bone spurs flared up in his foot."

Cronin on
Jaquon Parker (nine points, five rebounds in 15 minutes): "One thing about Park is he hasn't played a whole lot of point
guard. Having him play the point has slowed him down. He is a good defender and
he can make the open shot. Turning him into a point guard takes time, and I
have slowed him down with that. I think it will help him in the long run, but
his effort is tremendous. One thing you will see is him in with Deonta, if he
plays better. We have Lance and Deonta playing pretty consistent basketball,
and we need another one playing well alongside them."

Other observations from the second half:

Well, that's a pretty weak way for UC to start the second half. A turnover, and
two easy baskets for Cal.